As friend John Scott points out on his blog, Dave Wennergren, DoD CIO, has just signed out a very well coordinated, well staffed and well thought out clarification of guidance regarding Open Source Software (OSS).   A copy is attached.

Some key points:

- Open Source Software meets the government’s legal definition of “commercial computer software,” which is an important clarification in the procurement world.  Some who don’t understand open source sometimes mistakenly would think that it was not allowed because of the way they read some regulations and this clarification will help in that regard.

- All programs in DoD should consider  Open Source Software when doing market research on solutions.  There are many reasons why that are captured in the memo.  Depending on the particular situation, these reasons might include better functionality, better security, better performance and better supportability.

- The memo clarifies some key issues regarding code distribution inside and outside of DoD.

The entire memo deserves broad distribution inside and outside of DoD.

This should also give a great boost to the Forge.mil efforts of DISA, I think.

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